Revised border airport plan rose from grander vision

The artists rendering includes a two-story, 45,000-square-foot building in Otay Mesa (shown in foreground) connected to a pedestrian bridge that takes people to the airport in Tijuana (black outline shown in background).

The artists rendering includes a two-story, 45,000-square-foot building in Otay Mesa (shown in foreground) connected to a pedestrian bridge that takes people to the airport in Tijuana (black outline shown in background).

Sometimes thinking smaller to solve a problem is the better way to go.

That’s what led to the current plan to build a terminal on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico connected by a pedestrian bridge to Tijuana’s airport.

Back in 1991, a proposal called TwinPorts was not small in anybody’s mind — neither to its supporters, like county Supervisor Ron Roberts, nor to its detractors, like Brian Bilbray and Bob Filner, both now congressmen.

TwinPorts was to be the solution to Lindbergh Field’s overcrowded conditions, the end of a decades-long hunt for real estate on which to house a new regional airport. TwinPorts would have fused an entire U.S. airport with Tijuana’s General Abelardo L. Rodríguez International Airport, with a shared taxiway and control tower.

The proposal failed in the face of strong opposition. Critics on both sides of the border expressed concerns over security, noise, traffic, pollution and doubts about the feasibility of such a binational undertaking.

But the idea never completely went away.

The new plan for a two-story, 45,000-square-foot airport terminal with a 525-foot pedestrian bridge leading directly into Tijuana’s airport has liftoff and is rapidly gaining altitude. The proposal does not include a separate-but-equal airstrip with noisy flight paths over nearby communities and businesses.

The plan, by a consortium of Chicago and Mexico investors, has a presidential permit on this side of the border and has been fast-tracked by the San Diego City Council for crucial zoning amendments and building permits. Mexican investors are working on similar federal, state and local permits.

“The reason this project has been embraced by so many people is its narrow focus,” said Greg Rose, managing director of Equity Group Investments, part of billionaire Sam Zell’s financial holdings. “It is a pedestrian bridge that will be used by passengers only; it is not a general border crossing.”

South County Economic Development Council executive director Cindy Gompper-Graves echoes Rose. “This is a border crossing,” she said. “We can call it an airport terminal, whatever. It is a border crossing.”

A pedestrian crossing to Tijuana’s airport was the brainchild of the economic development council a dozen years ago.

“They knew, as we all do, that the (Lindbergh Field) airport is constrained in San Diego and that we had to look for an alternative,” Gompper-Graves said. “A group of SCEDC members felt there had to be an easier way to use the Tijuana airport.”

A key question that the group kept confronting was: Would access to the Tijuana airport hurt Lindbergh Field? A 2008 marketing study by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority answered that question: Far from hurting Lindbergh, it would complement its services, with Tijuana “specializing in Mexico travel and (Lindbergh Field) specializing in U.S. domestic travel.”

Equity Group Investments was ahead of the airport authority by a year. In 2007, it purchased a 52-acre parcel at Siempre Viva Road and Britannia Boulevard in Otay Mesa for $34 million, a stone’s throw from the Tijuana airport.

“This idea was driven by others,” Rose said, “and it made a lot of sense. When the land became available, it made even more sense.”

Rose cited these reasons for the project:

• The potential for expansion at Tijuana’s airport, which operates at about 60 percent of capacity, flying 3.4 million passengers in 2009 to 24 Mexico destinations and international flights to Japan, China, Cuba and elsewhere.

• Already, 60 percent of the people who use the airport — arriving and departing — cross the border, with its onerous waits and heavy traffic. Studies indicate that a convenient entry point from the U.S. could add as many as 1.1 million more passengers a year.

• In the unlikely event that air passenger traffic doesn’t increase, Rose said the group’s $78 million investment is secure based on projected toll collections.

It also helps that security concerns seem to be surmountable.

“The building on the U.S. side will, in many ways, be like an airport terminal,” Rose said. “People will arrive, park, pick up their boarding passes and proceed to a checkpoint where a crossing fee will be collected.

“They will pass through a Customs and Border Protection checkpoint before ascending stairs, elevator or escalator to the bridge, 525 feet across to the Tijuana airport terminal.”

Only ticketed passengers will be able to cross the bridge, which will have instant lock-down capability. The 33-foot-wide bridge is a minimum 19 feet above the ground and divided into two corridors, for U.S.-bound and airport-bound passengers.

Such attention to security appeals to border-conscious politicians such as Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, who issued this statement through an aide: “So as long as it’s secure and doesn’t present any law enforcement or security challenges, including a possible outlet for smuggling or illegal immigration, then the congressman doesn’t have a problem with it. In that case, it’s good for commerce and families on both sides of the border.”

Reps. Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, and Filner, D-San Diego — who led the charge against TwinPorts — have not publicly spoken in favor or against the pedestrian bridge. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Supervisor Roberts is lukewarm to the idea. "I'm not big proponent of the pedestrian bridge," he said on Friday, Dec. 10. "San Diego still needs to find its own solution, a 21st Century airport in San Diego County."

Backers of the project expect construction to begin next year with the facility operational by late 2012 or early 2013.

South County business interests have long used the proximity of a 24-hour international airport nearby in Mexico as a selling point in luring foreign investment to the region. Easier access to Tijuana flights would make that selling point even more salient, said Gompper-Graves of the economic development council.

Besides being a one-of-a-kind project, she said, “In my mind, this is the first project that looks at our binational constraints and looks at our binational resources and tries to address the problem accordingly.”

“There has to be a way to make security and commerce coexist,” she said. “Maybe this is it, our example of security and commerce coexisting.”